On Fate's Wings
by punnylove
Summary: Within 24 hours of meeting Sunshine Corazon, Ramos has been fed, beaten over the head, bandaged, yelled at, and sang to. Mama Corazon and Tia are already planning the wedding.  Backstory to Ramos/Sunshine content in "Of Sunshine and Friendship."
1. Chapter 1

Summary: AU. Sort of the backstory to Ramos' role in my other stories, "Of Sunshine and Friendship," and "In a Relationship." Dumdeedum, one of the _many_ wonderful people who reviewed, (love ya guys!) mentioned that it seemed that "Ramos only got with Sunshine after her makeover." I reread my fic, and realized that I never really provided the history and background between Ramos and Sunshine. Again, he's the same Ramos from "Take the Lead," hence this story's classification as a crossover. There will probably be mentions of the "Take the Lead" cast/storyline, plus Sunshine. So, here it is!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 1 ~ Firsts<strong>

_There are friendships that happen because of common interests, similar personalities, and/or persistent parents. And then, there are friendships that can only occur if a certain chain of events play out—a chain of events so intricate and rare that it very rarely happens. But, once every couple centuries, it does happen, and when it does, nothing can keep the two individuals apart, for their friendship is born on the wings of fate, and no matter how chance strives to separate them—fate will always pull them back together again._

* * *

><p>Ramos remembers the first time he meets Sunshine Corazon. He's ten, and he's bleeding from the blows of thirteen-year old Natasha's boyfriend, who didn't take kindly to seeing another boy with his hands up his girl's skirt. Ramos kicks a soda can into the street, balling his fist as he remembers Natasha claiming that Ramos had forced her to kiss him. <em>Did you force me to make you moan like you never did with Bronx, you slutty cow? <em>

Anyway, he couldn't, _wouldn't_ go back right now—Bronx and his gang were probably waiting to pound his face into the ground, and there was no food in the fridge anyway. Rain is falling, and soon the boy is soaked, but Ramos grits his teeth and forces himself to keep walking. He didn't feel the cold. He _didn't._

"Are you lost?" the voice is female—young. Ramos swivels. The girl who's standing there is nothing like any girl he's ever seen. For one, she's not pierced, or tattooed, and her clothes are too large rather than skin-tight. She's Filipina, like him, and tiny, the clothes virtually swamping her small frame. Ramos notes the guitar case in her arms and the ragged umbrella over her head and looks around.

He's wandered into the nicer end of town, where the people are hungry but not starving, poor but not desperate—hopeful rather than drinking or doing drugs to try to forget the hole in their belly. He turns back to look at the girl, and a fuzzy side of his mind says that she'd very different from Natasha, with her worn, but clean clothes and her friendly smile. The smile is what keeps Ramos from knocking the girl down, stealing the guitar case from her, and running away as fast as possible. That, and the fact that she can't be more than six years old. He's still got some morals left.

"No," he finally says, looking at her sullenly, "I'm not lost. I just don't want to go—" The word "home," sticks in his throat, (_he hasn't used it the accident_), and he finishes lamely, "—back."

She's getting wet—her flimsy umbrella doing near nothing to keep the rain out—but she doesn't seem in a rush to leave. "I know what you mean," she says instead. Conversationally, like they're friends. "Sometimes, I don't want to go home either. Mama's not always there, and it's scary by myself." She brightens. "Want to come home with me?"

Ramos stares at her. Is the girl stupid? Then he shrugs and nods. Her stupidity is his gain, he supposes. He'll get out of the rain, get something to eat, and maybe swipe some money if there's any lying around. She smiles and grabs his arm, holding the umbrella so that it covers both of their heads. Ramos can feel her small hand sliding into his and her side pressed into his. He can feel her body heat, and shivers instinctively. Natasha, despite her rounded breasts and experience, hadn't succeeded in making him feel so warm.

They walk to a small apartment complex, and the idiot girl takes the keys out from under the front mat without even asking him to look away. As soon as the door is unlocked, Ramos pushes past her and into the two-room apartment. It's shabby, but clean, and it's shelter from the freezing rain. He spots a refrigerator and dives for it, but it's empty except for some frozen leftovers. He glances around, but doesn't see a microwave.

"We don't have one," the girl says from behind him, and Ramos jumps. She puts the leftovers away and swings herself onto the counter. Opening the highest cupboard, she takes out some bread and hands it to him. Ramos takes it and tears into the food, feeling her eyes on him as he eats.

"I'm Sunshine," she says when he finally finishes, "What's you name?"

Ramos considers lying, or not responding, but he's still hungry and if he plays along, maybe she'll give him more food. "Ramos."

"That's a nice name," she says, that same warm, bright smile on her face. Ramos rolls his eyes. "Whatever kid, do you have more food?"

Sunshine pouts. "I'm _not_ a kid," she protests, "I'm nine years old!"

Ramos can't help it, he snorts. "Yeah right, whatever kid."

Sunshine glares at him, but then notices the way his shoulders are shaking from the cold. He's really skinny—too skinny, and she wonders if she'd be able to count his ribs if he took off his shirt. Remembering his question, she swings herself back up on the counter, searching the cupboards. There's nothing left but a little bit of cereal. She offers it to him, and it's gone in seconds.

"We're all out," she says apologetically when he looks up again. Ramos shrugs, "Whatever. I wasn't that hungry anyway."

Sunshine plops down next to him, and Ramos looks at her clearly for the first time. She's older than he first realized, and he wonders if maybe she is nine years old. Physically, she isn't any bigger than a six year old, but her eyes hold a maturity that only those who've experienced the streets have.

For a moment, he feels a stab of guilt that he's probably going to end up robbing, her, but he pushes it away. A man has to look out for himself in this neighborhood, and he ain't gonna lose a chance at etra cash because he can't stomach rippin' off a kid.

Sunshine notes the look in the kid's eyes and sighs, wondering if she should feel stupider for hoping he wouldn't try to steal from her. "We don't have anything worth your time," she says. Ramos' eyes fall on her guitar case. He jerks his head at it, "Then what's in there, chica?"

Sunshine studies his hungry eyes, wiry muscles, and height, before deciding that if she was going to defend herself, she might as well have the element of surprise. Opening the case, she pulls out a sharp wooden stick. Ramos catches the sight of the instrument and a flash of green, and his blood roars. _Money._ He leaps, there's a crack, and the world goes dark.

When he wakes up, a small, roundish woman is tending to the bump on his head. Ramos jerks away, knocking over the glass in her hand. The hot liquid burns his thighs as it spills, and Ramos yelps. "You tryin' to kill me, you—"

"Do _not_ finish that, _chiquito,_ or I'll let my daughter knock you over the head again." The woman scolds him in Spanish, waving one finger imperiously, and for a moment Ramos is reminded of his own mother. She'd been just as round, just as short, and just as intolerant of disrespect—Ramos pushes the thoughts away angrily. This woman was _not_ his mother.

Her hands are on in head again, tying the knot on the bandage she'd fixed there. Ramos feels nauseous, and he gags when she tries to take his temperature. The woman grabs a bucket and places it under his chin. "If you're going to throw up, Mr. Ramos, do so in this." Ramos promptly obeys, and when the smell of his own vomit hits him, he throws up all over again.

"Poor _babe_," the woman soothes. She rubs his neck and Ramos feels the tenseness disappearing. "Feel better?"

"My head hurts," Ramos complains. He touches his head gingerly, wincing at the large welt right above his right ear. "What happened?"

"Well, according to Sunshine, you were about to steal her guitar and she hit you over the head with that." The woman jerks her head towards a long wooden staff. "She keeps it with her guitar at all times—just in case."

As if she'd heard her name, Sunshine appears. She beams at her mother, gives her a kiss—Ramos is _not_ jealous of their relationship—and then promptly walks over and cuffs him over one ear. "I told you there wasn't anything worth your time to steal." She shakes a small can full of money. "Twenty-three dollars isn't nearly enough to pay for a concussion, which is what I could have given you."

Ramos snorts. "Please, kid. You? Give _the_ Ramos more than a scratch? You're crazy, chica." He tries to stand up but the world tilts on its axis and he fall back, groaning. Sunshine's hands join her mothers, the little fingers poking the wound gently. "You were saying, mijo?" Sunshine's mother asks, clucking disapprovingly.

Ramos flinches at the name. "Don't call me that," he snaps, "I'm not your son." Sunshine's fingers suddenly are not so gentle and Ramos curses at her. She leaps back as if burned, but returns his glare fearlessly. "Don't talk to my mama that way."

"It's ok, mi corazon," the woman says soothingly, and Ramos tells himself that it's _not_ understanding in her eyes. She can't understand anything. "He just needs some time to adjust to being in our family. Unless," she hesitates. "Sunshine told me you had no desire to return to your house, but Sunshine can be a bit eager when it comes to making friends and might have misunderstood—are there people who will be missing you?"

_Tia_, Ramos thinks guiltily. His aunt must be sick with worry by now. "Mrs.—" he starts, and then stops, not sure what to call her. "You call me, Mama," the woman orders, "If you have a mama of your own, you can call me Mrs. Corazon."

Ramos' eyes harden. "I _do_ have a mama," he snaps, "But I live with my Tia. She'll be worried. I'm leaving."

"You're in no condition to leave," Mrs. Corazon says firmly, "Tell me your Tia's phone number and I'll call her. The man downstairs has a cellphone that I can use, and I'll tell her to come pick you up—"

"We don't have a phone." Ramos' voice is flat. "Had one, but one of Tia's customers broke it when he decided to rob the place." The SOB had taken every last penny Tia had saved from her vegetable stand, but (thankfully) unharmed. It had taken all of Ramos self-control to keep from going after the man, and in the end it was only Tia's flat statement that he'd die and she'd be left alone that made him give up.

"Then Sunshine'll take a message. You're in no condition to travel."

"Your precious corazon will probably be found raped and murdered if she tries to go anywhere near my place," Ramos promised, and is satisfied to see a look of disgust cross the woman's face. He doesn't expect her to straighten and declare, "Then I'll go. Sunshine, watch our patient."

"Yo, lady," Ramos calls as she starts for the second room, "What makes you think those that would do your little girl won't do you instead?"

Mrs. Corazon turns and gives him a look that is pure steel. "Because I am a mother, and so I have all kinds of strengths you would know nothing about," she says firmly, "And also—" Ramos hears a clicking noise, and Mrs. Corazon emerges hefting two pistols. "I have these."

"Can you use them?" Ramos asks skeptically.

"No. But they don't know that," Mrs. Corazon actually _winks_ at him before heading for the door. The woman was insane! Ramos shouts it after her, but she doesn't turn around.

"Wouldn't your mama do it for you?" Sunshine asks after he finally stops yelling for the old bat to turn around before she got herself killed. Ramos gives her a flat stare. "My mama's dead," he says bluntly, "But yeah, she'd do it for me." He expects her to shrink away or come up with some phony apology speech or something, but she just puts some ice to his head and replies, "My daddy's dead too. How'd your mom die?"

"Car accident. The stupid taxi driver was drunk, and he crashed the car." His seatbelt hadn't been on, and his mother had thrown herself over his body and absorbed the impact of the car hitting the building. They'd pulled him screaming from underneath her dead body.

"I'm sorry." There's no pity in the little girl's voice, just genuine sympathy. "My dad was shot by some drug dealers. He was a musician, so he worked pretty late, and one night he decided to take a shortcut and—" Sunshine's voice falters, but Ramos recognizes the look in her eyes. Sometimes, there are just no more tears to cry.

"He walked in on a deal, the dealer's shot him on sight." Ramos finishes for her. He turns away. "Your crazy mama's probably gonna end up the same way." There's a second of pure silence, and then Sunshine socks him in the stomach hard enough to knock the wind out of him. He falls back on the couch, and she stand above him, trembling with rage.

"You stupid, _stupid_ boy!" she rages, "Mama takes you in, fixes your bump, and goes after you Tia so she won't be worried, and you just—just—" she can't even finish.

Ramos finally gets his wind back, and manages to sputter, "Never asked her to do it. And she's no mama of mine. 'Sides, if you'd just left me alone none of this shit would've happened."

Her eyes fill with tears at that and she runs into the other room, slamming the door. Ramos watches as the walls tremor from the sound, and listens to the little girl sob. Closing his eyes, he leans back on the couch and wonders why he had to go and say what he just said. He falls asleep with her quiet crying in his ears and guilt pounding at his head.

When he wakes up, it's to the sound of the guitar. Sunshine is sitting with her back to him, strumming the instrument and singing. He doesn't recognize the song—something about snowdrops on roses and whiskers on kittens—but it sounds nice despite being a total pussy song.

"You have pipes, kid," he finally says, and she whirls. He feel guilty again when he sees the red around her eyes, and looks away awkwardly. "Listen, I'm sorry for crackin' at your mom. Your right, she's cool."

That's all he's going to say, and luckily, she seems to get that. Climbing up next to him, she turns back to her guitar, and Ramos closes his eyes again.

His Tia arrives back with the Mrs. Corazon three hours later. One of Mrs. Corazon's pistols is missing and Tia is holding an ancient shotgun. No one dared bother the two women as they rushed home to their children. By the time they arrive, they've bonded in the way that mothers, (or mother-figures, in Tia's case), do over children, and are already planning another meeting. Tia doesn't mention it, but she fully expects to see Ramos, (the boy's got a good heart, but a hell of a temper), somehow torturing Amihan Corazon's daughter.

She's shocked, and not a little speculative, when she sees the two sleeping side by side on the couch, Sunshine's guitar clutched in one hand, Ramos's hand in the other. The boy's head is in her lap, and her legs are tucked into his side. "Amihan," she whispers, "Do you see what I see?"

Mrs. Corazon, takes one look at the children and, reaching into her pocket, takes out a cheap Kodak camera. Snapping a picture, she hands it to Tia. "Rachel, get this developed. We're going to need more film if we're going to document this love story."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 ~ That Moment**

* * *

><p><em>Before true love can bloom, there must be friendship. Just as the flower blooms after the roots are solidly planted, the lovers must know each other beyond the rosy haze of their emotions. Such roots keeps them grounded, gives them a solid foundation that survives all things.<em>

_There's a moment in every relationship when the participants truly realize that they have become friends. For some, it happens right away—others take longer. An unlucky few never truly understand at all. But for the love born on Fate's Wings, the Moment comes…_

* * *

><p>A year had passed since that meeting in the rain, and Ramos was finally getting used to having Sunshine Corazon in his life. To be perfectly honest, after he'd woken up to his Tia's scoldings and eaten Mrs. Corazon's (he still wouldn't call her Mama, but he was getting there), pancakes, he'd expected never to see the little girl with the big voice again.<p>

But then, Tia started sending him on errands to the Corazon households, and her mother did the same. And, of course, Ramos was sent to "watch" Sunshine, which was really just another way of saying that he was responsible for making sure she didn't get herself killed or kidnapped.

It was easier than he thought it would be.

Behind the sunny outlook and big-eyed naivety, Sunshine Corazon wasn't stupid. She knew better than to follow strangers into their cars or to accept candy from people she didn't know. What she didn't know, however, was that he was one of those people that she should really avoid.

Ramos did his best to ditch her whenever he thought he could get away with it, but then she'd wander off into his part of town with that big guitar case and big smile asking for "Ramos," and he'd have to hustle her out before she got herself shanked and left in a ditch.

"Stop following me," he exploded once after a particularly close call, in which he'd actually seen one of Bronx's friends eyeing her, "You're gonna get yourself killed, and it's fu—_freakin'_ annoying to have to rescue you all the time. He ignored the little part of him that was asking since when did he watch his language for anyone.

Sunshine had looked stubbornly straight back at him and told him that they were friends, and friends hung out. If he wasn't going to come to her, she was going to find him. Ramos told her snidely that they weren't friends, but the next day he went to her house to steal breakfast and ended up walking her to her morning gigs.

It was nice, he supposed. A place where the upper-middle class usually hung out, and where plenty of nice old ladies donated money to help the "poor mites in those awful neighborhoods." He sat a couple benches away until he noticed the policeman eyeing him. After that, he sat next to Sunshine.

A couple weeks into this arrangement, Sunshine asked him out of the blue if he wanted to sing with her. Ramos gave her a look that said very plainly, "If you weren't a dumbass little girl who I can't swear around, I'd call you a f***in' stupid moron." She doesn't press, but neither does she give up.

The fourth time she asks, he tells her that he can't sing. She asks him how he knows. He doesn't really have an answer for that, but he doesn't want to admit that so he pulls one of her pigtails and runs away when she cries out indignantly. (For some reason, this elicits a couple "_awws,"_ from Sunshine's audience and there are extra tips that day.)

The next time he sees her, she tells him it's her tenth birthday. He stares at her tiny frame—he still has suspicions about her true age—and shrugs. "So?"

"So, sing with me."

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

She pauses. "When's your birthday?"

It's such a shift in topic that he gawks for a couple moments before replying. "Couple weeks, why?"

"When, _exactly_?"

Ok, so maybe she is ten years old. There's no way a seven-year old can pull off that much of a Mom-tude. "Two weeks, three days," he admits sulkily, and then straightens and smirks, looking her straight in the eye, "Why, chiquita? You gonna buy me something?"

Sunshine shrugged, and took out her guitar. "Maybe?"

Ramos rolled his eyes, "Man, that ain't fair. You can't just leave me hangin'."

She's actually pouting like a puppy or something when she looks at him again, guitar in her arms. "You won't even sing with me," she said, "Why should I—"

"Chiquita, why do you even want to sing with me?" Ramos interrupted, "This ain't some way to declare your undying love for me or nothing, is it?" Spreading his hands, he smirked, "Sorry, but his piece of hotness don't bang kids."

"You're—you're—" she actually sputters, her face turning red at his laughter, and then resolutely proceeds to ignore him for the rest of the day.

He slings his arm around her for the first time that afternoon, trying to coax her to smile again, and then suddenly he realizes that they're actually _friends _now. The thought makes him pause and Sunshine jerks against his suddenly unmoving arm. Turning, she scowls. "What—"

He looks down at her, and wonders how he became friends with this tiny mite with the huge voice and smiling eyes, but there ain't no way in hell he's gonna let her know that's what he's thinking. "I'm hungry," he said again, "Tia's working late. Let's eat at your place."

After all, if they were friends, she might as well feed him.


End file.
